Pupil Premium is a funding initiative introduced to ensure that students aged 11 to 16 from families with limited income receive additional funding to help their educational attainment. The funding is given to the school rather than the individual and is based on the number of children in receipt of Free School Meals now or in the past 6 years.

At Birchwood much of the funding will be channelled into targeted teaching and learning and innovative projects to increase student engagement in education, which could include music lessons, school trips and improved access to information technology

Although we are targeting the specific students for whom we have received funding, we are determined that these students will not be stigmatised or labelled because of the financial barriers to education that they face. For example, Birchwood uses a smart card system to pay for school lunches. Those students entitled to free school meals have their cards topped up automatically at the start of each school week, so there is no apparent difference between students entitled to free school meals and those who are not.

Links

• Pupil Premium – information from the Department for Education

Available to 11- to 18-year-old students

Qualifying Benefits for FSM

• Income Support
• Income based Jobseekers allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• The Guaranteed element of State Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (as long as you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and you don’t get more than £16,190 a year)
• Working Tax Credit run-on (paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
• Universal Credit (with annual earned income of no more than £7,400 a year after tax and not including any benefits you get). This includes those who had free school meals whilst on Universal Credit before April 1st 2018 even if earnings are above that £7400 figure.
• If your child is eligible for free school meals, they’ll remain eligible until March 2023, or until they finish their current phase of schooling (primary or secondary), if that’s after March 2023.

Claimants may also be eligible for help with travel costs and music fees 

Links

• Claiming free school meals (HCC website)